Cocaine use doesn’t just affect addicts or lead to crime–It also leads to the demise of RAINFORESTS. Scientists are reporting new evidence that cultivating coca bushes, the source of cocaine, is speeding up destruction of rainforests in Colombia and threatening the region’s "hotspots" of plant and animal diversity. In fact, the tropical rainforests in Brazil are now on FIRE!
read more
Are you an alcoholic or one of those white people with a "jones" for cocaine? Researchers have produced a lasting anti-cocaine immunity in mice by giving them a safe vaccine that combines bits of the common cold virus with a particle that mimics cocaine. This novel strategy might be the first to offer cocaine addicts a fairly simple way to break and reverse their habit, and it might also be useful in healing other addictions, such as to nicotine, heroin and other opiates. (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to this special interview).
read more
Which country uses the most cocaine? There’s no need to check police files or track down drug pushers in order to find out?all you need to do is test their money for traces of cocaine. According to this method, Spain uses the most coke, followed by Ireland and Germany.
Almost all the euros in Germany contain traces of cocaine. “Nine out of 10 banknotes show clearly measurable amounts of cocaine,” says drug tester Fritz Soergel. He did a separate study on euros in Barcelona, and says, “We were almost knocked flat by what we discovered there. The concentrations of cocaine on Spanish euro notes were almost a hundred times that of what we recorded in Germany.” Tests in London in 1999 showed more than 99% of the pound notes in circulation had cocaine on them.
read more
Permissive parents, who feel their teens are old enough to make decisions for themselves, should know that at that stage of mental development, the part of the brain that tells them to experiment with drugs is much more advanced than the part that judges whether or not it would be a smart thing to do.
Lee Dye writes in abcnews.com that adolescence is the worst time in a person’s life to become addicted to drugs, because addiction affects brain development. Psychiatrist Andrew Chambers says that taking drugs during the teenage years “really does make concrete changes in the way your brain operates, in a permanent sense.”
read more